Saturday, January 12, 2008

Hemet, California

We arrived in Hemet last night. Sorry we've been out of touch for four days while we were in Death Valley. We had a wonderful time there. I wrote my blog entry each day, but haven't been able to publish until today. Also, I think I've figured out how to post a slide show of the pictures I took there, but I'll have to publish that later. The wi-fi costs $5 per day here. I can use Mike's phone to publish text, but I'll need to pay for the regular wi-fi to move the data for the slide show. More to come on that within the next couple of days.

We're here visiting a friend of mine from high school. We graduated together, but she is a LOT older than I am despite our former same birth years. (I kept writing "sane" when I meant to write "same." I wonder if that means anything. Hmmm.) We're going to see some archeological stuff today--saber tooth tigers and the like. Sounds like fun.

The drive down yesterday was pretty harrowing. It started with barren roads on Death Valley and ended up in rush-hour traffic in the middle of San Bernardino. The off-ramp we wanted was closed, and so we had to go up and turn around and get going in the other direction to go the way we wanted. It took us 2 hours to move 2 miles. Sheesh. During that time, we saw a rear-end collision, some really gutsy lane changes, and a guy who absolutely cut in front of us by bypassing the 45-minute line we waited in to get on the other freeway we wanted. He cut across the triangular paint that divides the off-ramp from the freeway, and also through some little flexible pole barriers. As he did this, he waved his hand at us as if thanking us for letting him cut in the line. We waved back at him with our middle fingers. (Some people didn't learn much in kindergarten.) But as this was all happening, a cop saw him and stopped beside us, got out of the car, and angrily indicated to the guy that he needed to pull over for a good talking-to. I suppose he was required to sign some kind of document promising never to do it again. And I suppose it will be very expensive for him to learn that lesson. It made all the rest of it worthwhile.

So I need to get going with my other posts and then give my friend a call to figure out today's agenda. Take care all. We are back for the next several days at least.